


Lucky and Liho

by thedemonkingawakes



Series: Hurricane Universe [2]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Clint Needs a Hug, F/M, Gen, Past Abuse, Post-Avengers, Sadness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-15
Updated: 2015-02-15
Packaged: 2018-03-13 03:24:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,535
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3365939
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thedemonkingawakes/pseuds/thedemonkingawakes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"And in the back of her mind, maybe she had already known Clint wouldn’t stick around. Known that he couldn’t."</p><p>Clint's gone and Natasha might be the only person who can put the pieces back together.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lucky and Liho

**Author's Note:**

> Reunion 4.   
> Part of my Hurricane Universe, but can be read as a stand alone.

“Agent Barton is off the grid.”

Natasha wasn’t sure what she had been expecting when Fury called her into his office. Her ankle was still healing, which meant no missions. And in the back of her mind, maybe she had already known Clint wouldn’t stick around. Known that he couldn’t.

Natasha kept her face carefully blank as she replied, “Sir.”

“No one has seen him since Agent Coulson’s funeral.”

That wasn’t true. Natasha had seen him that night. They all had. The Avengers - she supposed they were sticking with the name - had gotten together afterwards, to honor the man who had brought them together and to say goodbye. Not just to Coulson, but to each other. Thor had already left for Asgard, and soon the others would follow. Tony would go back to his mansion in California, and Bruce would go back to Calcutta or wherever he felt he could make a difference. Steve, well, she wasn’t sure where Steve was going, only that he wasn’t staying in New York. That left her and Clint; Strike Team Delta. Clint had said goodbye. He didn’t say he would be in touch, because they both knew he might not be. She’d watched him climb onto his motorcycle and disappear into the back alleys of Queens, knowing she might not see her partner again for a long time.

“Is there something you want me to do about it, sir?” Natasha said.

Fury leaned forward, glaring. “Do you know where he is, Agent Romanoff?”

“No.”

Fury assessed her for a minute, trying to judge if she was lying. It was a futile effort. Natasha’s face was blank, her expression betraying no hint of what she was thinking. Fury sighed frustratedly and stood up.

“Could you terminate your partner, Agent Romanoff, if it came to that?” Fury asked.

Natasha couldn’t keep a hint of surprise - or shock, she wasn’t sure - out of her voice. “Sir?”

“Agent Barton appears to have severed all ties with Shield. If I send you after him, and that is a big if, I need to know you can do what’s needed, should it come to that.”

“I can, sir.” Natasha hated herself for saying those words, but if it was the lie she had to tell to get to Clint, she would tell it.

“How quickly can you have a team mobilized?”

Natasha frowned. “All due respect, Director Fury, but Barton would spot a strike team a mile away. It has to be me. _Just_ me.”

Fury glared at her, searching for signs of deceit. “You have three days to find Agent Barton and bring him back to Shield.” He said eventually. “After that, I’m mobilizing a strike team.”

Natasha nodded her head and left. Fury’s ultimatum didn’t scare her. If she couldn’t find Clint, no one would be able to. Besides, they were both good at hiding. She wouldn’t force him to come back; she wouldn’t blame him if he wanted to cut ties from everything and everyone from Shield. But she owed it to Coulson, and to herself, to try and put back together what Loki had broken.

She couldn’t take one of the quinjets; nothing that would leave a trail. Natasha rented a car under the alias Laura Matthers from a car rental place on the outskirts of the city. By the time anyone thought to trace the alias, she would be long gone.

Sometime after crossing the border into Pennsylvania, it occurred to Natasha that she should leave some way for the Avengers to contact her if there was an emergency. Much to her annoyance, the only Avenger it would make sense to leave her number with was Stark. Reluctantly, she punched his number into her phone. After the third ring, Pepper answered the phone.

“Stark Industries. Pepper Potts speaking.”

“Pepper.”

“Natasha?” Natasha could hear the confusion in the other woman’s voice. “Did something happen?”

“No.” Natasha replied. _Yes. My partner is gone and I don’t know if I can bring him back, or even if there is anything left to bring back. I’m afraid Loki shattered him into so many pieces that I’ll never be able to put them all back together._ “Is Stark there?”

“Yes. Just a moment.”

Natasha could hear rustling and the sounds of muted conversation as Pepper passed the phone over to Tony.

“Romanoff. What a pleasant surprise! Have you reconsidered my offer for you and Legolas to come live in the tower?”

“That’s not why I called. I’m leaving town for a while, and I figured it would be best to leave a way for the Avengers to get in contact with me. If there is an emergency, you can contact me at this number.”

“Where are you going?” Tony asked, curiosity getting the best of him.

“It’s none of your business.” Natasha snapped. She hung up the phone before Tony could ask any more questions.

She drove for the rest of the day and most of the night. It was nearly three am when she reached Clint’s farm. She ditched the car a few miles from the farmhouse and walked the rest of the way to the farmhouse. The long driveway stretched out in front of her, disappearing behind a thick screen of trees as it curved away from the main road. Natasha had never been to Clint’s farmhouse before, but in a strange way, it felt like she had. It was just like Clint had described it; the long winding driveway, the cozy wooden house, the open fields. Natasha hesitated, standing in front of the door into the farmhouse. Then, she pushed the door open and stepped inside.

The farmhouse was sparsely decorated. A few pictures hung on the walls, and a quiver of arrows hung from a hook to the right of the door. Natasha walked into the kitchen. Empty beer cans and takeout containers littered the counters. Natasha wrinkled her nose at the smell and walked back into the first room. Quietly, she padded up the stairs to the second floor. Clint’s bedroom was at the end of the hall. She could hear him, tossing and turning.

Slowly, Natasha pushed open the door. She touched Clint’s shoulder lightly, calling his name. After a minute or so, he woke up, blinking blearily.

“Go away.”

Clint stood up and pushed past Natasha. He stumbled down the stairs and out the door into the warm night air. Natasha followed him. Clint broke into a run, darting between the trees with less than his usual grace. Natasha sprinted after him, ignoring the twinges of pain from her ankle. Unsteady as he was, Natasha caught up to Clint easily. She grabbed hold of his arm, forcing him to stop. Clint lashed out, trying to shake Natasha off. She wrapped her arms around him, fighting to pin his arms to his side.

Slowly, Clint’s struggles subsided. He leaned into Natasha. She lowered both of them gently to the ground as sobs racked Clint’s body. Natasha just held him, feeling tears run down her own face. She recognized the expression on his face; she had seen it on her own for years. It was a look she had hoped to never see again, especially not on her partner’s face.

The sun was starting to come up by the time Natasha climbed to her feet and led Clint back to the farmhouse. He didn’t protest as she led him up the steps and tucked him into the big bed. Natasha kissed his forehead.

Once Clint had drifted off to sleep, Natasha went downstairs. She got rid of the piles of takeout and beer cans, and scrubbed the kitchen until it was somewhat useable. There wasn’t much edible food in Clint’s fridge. Natasha frowned and left it alone.

For the first time since she arrived, Natasha realized how tired she was. She hadn’t gotten a good night’s sleep since before New York, and it was starting to tell. Clint was still asleep, so Natasha lay down on the couch. She was asleep in minutes, despite the bright sun streaming through the farmhouse windows.

~*~*~

Natasha wasn’t sure whether it was Clint scream or her own nightmares that woke her. She jolted into alertness, reaching for the gun she normally kept under her pillow. Her hand bumped the arm of the couch and Natasha remembered where she was; on the couch in Clint’s farmhouse. She stood up and hurried up the stairs to Clint’s room. The sound of retching met her ears as she pushed open the door to Clint’s bedroom.

Clint was sitting on the cold, tile floor of his bathroom, his head resting on his hands. Natasha sighed and lay a cool washcloth across the back of Clint’s neck. He murmured his thanks.

Eventually, Clint walked back into his bedroom. He flopped down on the bed and looked at Natasha.

“God, you’re beautiful.”

Natasha smiled. “And you’re still drunk. Come downstairs and I’ll make coffee.”

Clint followed Natasha down the steps. He took a seat at the kitchen table, resting his head on the smooth wood. Natasha started a pot of coffee, filling the air with its scent. Once it was brewing, she sat down at the table across from Clint. She covered his callused hands with her smaller ones.

"Clint…?"

Clint raised his head and looked at her bleakly. Natasha hated the look of despair in his eyes. She didn’t say anything else. She didn’t know what to say. The ding of the coffee pot interrupted them. Natasha stood up and poured the coffee into two chipped mugs. Clint accepted one of the mugs from Natasha. He took a long sip of the dark liquid, staring blankly at the wall behind Natasha.

“Clint?”

“It’s my fault, Tasha. It’s my fault.” He signed the last part. _It’s my fault he’s gone._

Natasha shook her head. “It’s not, Clint.” She spoke with her hands and her words. “It’s not your fault. Coulson knew full well what he was doing when he confronted Loki. It was his choice.” She smiled softly. “Not everything is about you, Clint Barton.” The words held no malice now.

Clint shook his head. “I let Loki onto the helicarrier. Without me…”

 _Without you, he would have found a different way on._ She signed.

Clint sighed and let his head drop back down to rest on the table. “I almost killed you.”

“That wasn’t you, Clint.”

“What if it was?” Clint raised his head slightly so he could meet Natasha’s eyes.

Natasha reached out and took hold of Clint’s hands. He pulled them out of her grasp, folding them in his lap.

“It wasn’t.” Natasha’s voice was hard, filled with a steely certainty. “I know you, Clint, and what you did on the helicarrier wasn’t you. What you did in New York was.”

Clint buried his head in his hands. “What did I do to deserve you?”

Natasha pushed her chair back from the table and stood up, fighting to keep her emotions locked behind her careful facade. “You should take a shower, get cleaned up. I’m going for a walk.”

Without another word, Natasha slipped out the door. She didn’t know if Clint was watching, and she didn’t really care. As soon as the door swung shut behind her, her mask cracked and shattered. For the second time in two days, Natasha ran.

~*~*~

_“What did I do to deserve this? What did I ever do to deserve you, you stupid bitch!” The man shouted. Natasha didn’t know his name. She never knew their names._

_The man reached out and slapped her. The action seemed to ignite something and suddenly his hands were around her throat, and she couldn’t breathe, and she wanted to strike back, wanted to defend herself, wanted to do something, anything, to get free, but she couldn’t. She couldn’t do anything. The cold metal shackles dug into her wrists as the man lifted her into the air, his hands pressing tighter around her throat. Natasha bit her lip, trying not to scream. That would only make it worse._

_Eventually the man dropped her to the ground. He kicked her once, twice, three times, and then he left. Natasha curled around herself as much as the shackles would allow, wishing for the blissful release of unconsciousness that she knew wasn’t coming. Tears rolled down her cheeks, tracing lines through the blood on her face. The cold seeped into Natasha, filling her veins, flowing through her until it seemed it would just take her away from everything, forever._

~*~*~

At some point Natasha had stopped running. She was sitting on the branches of an old oak tree, her knees clutched to her chest. Natasha didn’t remember when she stopped running.

“Natasha?”

Natasha glanced down from the tree. Clint, complete with dark shades, was walking along the thin path that cut through the trees. She watched him for a few minutes, uncertain as to whether she wanted to talk to him.

“Tasha, are you out here?”

Natasha sighed. “Yes.”

Clint stopped and leaned against the trunk of a tree, looking up at Natasha. _I’m sorry._ He signed.

_Can we talk?_

After a moment, Natasha nodded. Clint scaled the tree quickly, his hands and feet finding holds easily. Natasha shifted to make room for Clint in the fork of the tree. He settled down beside her and for a few moments, neither of them spoke.

 _Tasha._ Clint signed, not wanting to break the silence. _What’s wrong?_

Natasha spat out a rapid string of words in Russian. Clint held up his hands, gesturing for Natasha to stop.

“Tasha, stop.” Natasha kept talking in rapid-fire Russian, her voice barely more than a whisper. “Natasha, I can’t understand you when you talk that fast in Russian.”

Natasha stopped speaking.

 _What’s wrong?_ Clint repeated his question.

Natasha shook her head. _Just bad memories._

“I’m sorry.”

Natasha gave a little half smile. “How are you doing?”

Clint sighed. “I don’t know. It’s like, I’m not me anymore. Lo-He took my mind and played with it. He broke it into pieces, and he’s gone, but it doesn’t feel like the pieces went back together right. Like I’m not really myself.”

“I know.” Natasha reached out and touched Clint’s hand gently. She sighed. “I should call Shield before Fury gets impatient and sends a strike team after us.” She fished her phone out of her pocket and dialed Fury. “I found Barton.”

Fury said something Clint couldn’t make out. Natasha frowned.

“No, sir. Agent Barton and I are taking some personal time.”

“ _Agent_ Romanoff,” Fury’s voice was loud enough now that Clint could hear it coming through the speakers of Natasha’s phone. “I will not approve you for personal time at this juncture. Shield needs all its assets to deal with the fallout from New York.” His voice quieted marginally. “Agent Barton is still suspended pending an official investigation, so if he wants to spend some time away from Shield, that’s up to him. However, you are still a fully active asset, despite not being cleared for solo missions until your ankle heals. We need you here.”

Natasha took a deep breath, biting her lip to keep from shouting at the Director. When she spoke, her voice was steely calm, and if it was a bit louder than normal, Clint didn’t say anything. “Agent Barton and I are taking a bit of personal time. You can approve it, or we can disappear. The choice is yours.” She hung up the phone before Director Fury could respond.

Clint chuckled slightly. “Fury hasn’t deal with you much before, has he?”

Natasha smiled back. “Phil usually acted as a moderator.”

Both of them quieted at the mention of their handler.

“Did you disable the GPS on your phone?” Natasha asked brusquely, flipping her own phone over to disable the GPS.

“I ditched my phone somewhere in Pennsylvania.” Clint replied. “Didn’t feel like talking to anyone.”

Ten minutes later, Natasha’s phone vibrated with a text. **You have ONE month.**

Natasha shoved her phone back into her pocket and shifted so she could look at Clint. “How are you doing? Honestly?”

Clint shook his head. “Can we not do this now? Please?”

Natasha nodded. “Yeah.”

They just sat in silence for a while, their hand barely touching. It couldn’t last. They both knew that eventually, they would have to talk, to try and cope with everything that had happened, to come to terms with it and move on. But for the moment, they were both content to just sit there together, not saying anything.

~*~*~

They had ordered pizza for dinner, and made quiet, inconsequential conversation. Natasha had moved to sleep on the couch again, but Clint had asked her to stay with him, and she had. They had fallen asleep side by side in Clint’s big bed, his arm around her. She wasn’t sure who needed it more.

Clint slept restlessly, plagued by nightmares. Sometime after midnight, he jolted awake, fighting back a shout of terror. Natasha was asleep beside him, but after a moment, she woke up too. Clint forced himself to take deep breaths, trying to shake off the nightmare. He reached over and grabbed one of his hearing aids, pressing it into his ear.

“Did I wake you?”

Natasha shook her head. “Not really. I wasn’t sleeping well anyways. Are you okay?”

Clint shrugged. “Maybe. No. I don’t know.”

"Do you want to talk?"

After a moment, Clint nodded. He took a deep breath. Natasha didn't push him. She just reached out and laced her fingers through his.

"Coulson was…he was like a father to me. He believed in me when no one else did, and he had my back no matter what happened." Clint bit back a sob. "And yet, when he needed someone to have his back, I wasn't there." Clint sighed. "Phil always saw the best in people, even when they couldn't see it in themselves."

"Tell me."

Clint told her. He told her about Austria, where he and Coulson had met for the first time. He told her about their missions together, and about quiet night spent watching the game when there were no missions. And when speaking became too hard and the words wouldn't come, he spoke with his hands, signing the words in the space between them.

~*~*~

In the morning, Clint made eggs and Natasha made coffee. It was easy to slip back into the simple routine.

"I meant what I said." Clint said, checking the eggs with a spatula. "You are beautiful. You're beautiful and intelligent and clever and," He chuckled. "You could kick my ass in a fight any day of the week, and I'll never understand what I did to make me lucky enough to know you, or to be your partner."

Natasha smiled and leaned over to kiss Clint. "You were yourself."

Clint scooped the eggs onto three plates and Natasha poured three mugs of coffee. It wasn't until they had set the table and sat down to eat that they realized what they had done. Clint grimaced, Coulson's loss hitting him all over again. Never again would his friend eat breakfast with them after a long mission. Never again would they watch the game in the evenings, laughing and joking over pizza or beer. He stood up and went upstairs, leaving his food untouched on the table. Natasha heard a faint click as he unlocked the door at the end of the hallway.

With a sigh, she stood up. If Clint needed space, she would give it to him. Natasha picked up the extra set of dishes and took them back into the kitchen. She poured her own coffee into a travel mug and slipped out the door to go for a walk.

~*~*~  
Natasha set her empty coffee mug down in the sink. Clint’s food was still sitting untouched on the kitchen table. She sighed and walked up the steps. The room at the end of the hall was locked, but Natasha could hear the sound of Clint’s bow from within. Natasha crouched down and picked the lock easily. She pushed the door open a crack and slipped inside, shutting it silently behind herself.

Clint was standing in the middle of the room, firing arrow after arrow into the targets set around the room. His tips of his fingers were raw, and the beginnings of a bruise showed on his arm where he had neglected to put on an arm guard.

Clint didn’t protest as Natasha gently took his bow and quiver from him and set them down on the floor. He didn’t say anything as she led him back down to the kitchen table. She didn’t say anything as she bandaged his fingers and put an icepack on his bruised arm. Neither of them said anything. There wasn’t anything to say. Neither of them was who they had been before, before New York and Coulson and Loki, before aliens invaded and destroyed half of Manhattan, before the one man they thought had fought for nothing but himself had nearly made the ultimate sacrifice.

 _How do we go back?_ Clint signed.

Natasha shook her head. _I don’t know. But we have time to figure it out._

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> The next fic I post for this universe is going to be Hurricane, which will deal with Agent Coulson revealing himself to Clint and Natasha. It will also heavily feature Skye/Quake.


End file.
